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enJesus: Center of Our Unityhttp://livingchurch.org/jesus-center-our-unity
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Via the <a href="http://www.anglicancommunioninstitute.com/2013/09/greetings-to-the-faithful-of-the-anglian-communion-and-all-our-friends-in-christ/">Anglican Communion Institute</a></p>
<p>Toronto, Ontario <br />September 20, 2013</p>
<p>Greetings to the Faithful of the Anglian Communion and all our Friends in Christ:</p>
<p>We write to you from a <a href="http://www.wycliffecollege.ca/news_details.php?nid=483">conference in Toronto</a>, Canada, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the 1963 Pan-Anglican Congress held here. We are Primates and bishops representing the Anglican Global South, including the chairmen of the Global South Primates’ Steering Committee, Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa (CAPA), and Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON).</p>
<p>We thank Wycliffe College and her friends for hosting us.</p>
<p>We have heard talks recollecting our Anglican legacy from this 1963 Congress, and gave thanks in worship and fellowship for the astonishing missionary growth to which the congress both called and pointed us. In the midst of our gathering, we were blessed by a live address from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, commenting on the Congress theme of Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence in the Body of Christ.</p>
<p>We commend the calls we received in the conference talks, which included:</p>
<ul><li>Taking the risk of personal evangelism</li>
<li>Being honest about the structural challenges facing our Communion</li>
<li>The necessity of truth-telling in our Christian vocation of reconciliation as a Communion</li>
<li>Programmatic proposals for renewing the Instruments of Communion</li>
<li>The importance of committed assurances for preserving the faith and witness of traditional Anglicans in North America</li>
<li>Support and expansion of theological education in areas of rapid growth in the GS</li>
</ul><p>Our final talk inspired us to a revival of the missionary spirit of the Toronto Congress.</p>
<p>In this spirit, we lay before you the following:</p>
<ul><li>Communion is a missionary movement: as Stephen Bayne said at the time, our common goal is to plant the Gospel “in every place of the world”.</li>
<li>Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence (MRI) remains a compelling calling for today.</li>
<li>We need renewal of the structures of the Communion so as to reflect the tremendous growth of the Church in last 50 years in Global South. As the Congress noted regarding the fact of mission: “the form of the Church must reflect this”.</li>
<li>We must reclaim and strengthen Anglicanism’s conciliar character in these structures and in our decision-making, as MRI assumed.</li>
<li>We are open to a fresh articulation of an Anglican Covenant and commend the role it can have in the renewal of our Communion, and we believe that we ourselves can have a constructive role to play in leading in this.</li>
<li>We ask that our Communion consider our offering and our desire to be faithful in it to the vision laid out not only 50 years ago at the Toronto Congress, but for many years before in our common life.</li>
</ul><p>Finally, please know that we rejoice that Jesus is the center of our unity, amidst all our hopes and struggles. “We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete.” (1 Jn. 1:3-4)</p>
<p><em>Image: Archbishop Eluid Wabukala of Kenya, Archbishop Bernard Ntahoturi of Burundi, Dean Kuan Kim Seng of St. Andrew's Cathedral, Singapore, Archbishop Ian Ernest of the Indian Ocean, Archbishop Mouneer Anis of Egypt and North Africa, Bishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon of Kaduna, Nigeria • Photo by Sue Careless</em></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/global-south" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Global South</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/primates" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">primates</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/bishops" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">bishops</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/wycliffe-college" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wycliffe College</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/anglican-covenant" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Anglican Covenant</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-categories-top field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Categories:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/lead-story" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Lead Story</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/news" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News</a></div></div></div>Tue, 24 Sep 2013 23:36:04 +0000Web Editor1110 at http://livingchurch.orgHope for the Covenanthttp://livingchurch.org/hope-covenant
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>By Sue Careless</p>
<p>Just weeks after a majority of dioceses in the Church of England rejected the proposed Anglican Covenant, a small group of international bishops and theologians gathered in Toronto to discuss the proposal’s merits. Conference organizers held out hope that the Covenant could be approved by the rest of the Communion and even eventually by the Church of England. And it was an English theologian, the Rev. Paul Avis, who offered the most cogent arguments for the case.</p>
<p>“Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence: Covenant, Communion and the Future of Global Anglicanism” attracted nearly 100 scholars, clergy, and lay leaders May 10-11 to Wycliffe College at the University of Toronto. The Rev. George Sumner, principal of the college, said he hoped the conference would “bring some theological light to a subject that generates a good deal of heat.”</p>
<p>Avis, canon theologian for the Diocese of Exeter and founding editor of <em>Ecclesiology</em>, described the Anglican Communion as “neither a single global church” nor “a confederation of separate churches of diverse character,” but resembling most closely autocephalous (or self-governing) Eastern Orthodox churches.</p>
<p>Avis finds <em>province</em> “unsatisfactory” to describe member churches, primarily for its derogatory “provincial” overtones, as though each member church (the term he prefers) must kowtow to the head office in London. Avis affirms the autonomy of each member church but also hopes each would be not independent but mutually interdependent.</p>
<p>“To be a church is to be placed in relation to the Church universal,” he said. “Particular churches and the universal Church cannot exist without each other.”</p>
<p>He believes “bonds of affection,” the oft-quoted phrase from <em>The Windsor Report</em>, could not take the strain of the current crisis but added: “Communion infused with charity is the key to Anglican unity.”</p>
<p>Avis believes the Covenant deserves to be supported for five reasons:</p>
<ul><li style="margin-left: 0.4in; ">It is the only way forward. To reject the Covenant is to opt for Communion without constraints.</li>
<li style="margin-left: 0.4in; ">The Covenant is an embodiment of mutual commitment.</li>
<li style="margin-left: 0.4in; ">It is true to the Anglican understanding of the Church.</li>
<li style="margin-left: 0.4in; ">It is oriented to the common good of the Communion.</li>
<li style="margin-left: 0.4in; ">It may be amended by due process.</li>
</ul><p>“It is not set in stone,” Avis stressed. “Troubles can be ironed out.”</p>
<p>He also made it clear that “the Covenant does not address the substantive issues that triggered the crisis; it does not propose any doctrinal … or ethical tests for the Communion; it does not create any new structures for the Communion.”</p>
<p>While the Standing Committee may recommend “relational consequences” to the Instruments of Communion and to the member churches, the Covenant is not a legal mechanism. Rather, Avis said, it would “intensify our commitment to and engagement with one another as Anglicans.”</p>
<p>It is “an expression of what we owe each other as Christians and as churches: to listen, to consider advice, to show restraint, not to give offense, to accept accountability.” He said that “Covenant remains the strongest metaphor … for the commitment that we owe each other in Christ.”</p>
<p>Two African bishops and one from the Middle East offered additional perspectives. The Rt. Rev. Martin Nyaboho, Bishop of Makamba, Burundi, said many African Anglicans prefer to see the Church of England “more as a grandmother than a mother.”</p>
<p>The Rt. Rev. Azad Marshall, Bishop of the Diocese of Iran and Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf, said the adoption of the Covenant cannot come soon enough for the persecuted Church.</p>
<p>The Rt. Rev. Stephen Andrews, Bishop of Algoma in northern Ontario, noted how biblical pacts with God always had communal dimensions. The Rev. Alan Hayes, director of the Toronto School of Theology, gave a historical perspective on the current crisis in the Communion by examining fault lines that appeared as early as 1963 at the Toronto Anglican Congress.</p>
<p>To date only eight of the 38 member churches of the Anglican Communion have given their assent. But Avis holds out hope that the English church has simply “stalled” and may accept the Covenant at the next General Synod in 2015. In analyzing his church’s vote, he noted that 80 percent of the bishops had accepted the Covenant, while the houses of clergy and laity in most dioceses had both rejected it, but not by large margins.</p>
<p>“Communion (<em>koinonia</em>) is not a human construction, but a creation of the Holy Spirit,” Avis said. “It is an imperative of Christian love to seek communion with our fellow Christians.”</p>
<p><em>Sue Careless is senior editor</em> of The Anglican Planet.</p>
<p><em>Image: Conference speakers enjoy a light moment at Wycliffe College. Sue Careless photo.</em></p>
<div style="margin-left: 40px; ">A Seminarian’s Perspective</div>
<p style="margin-left: 40px; ">By Jeff Boldt</p>
<p style="margin-left: 40px; ">Nearly 50 years ago the Toronto Anglican Congress provided a remarkable stage where the global nature of Anglicanism pressed itself on the public imagination with novel force. In May, a conference based on that gathering’s theme of “Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence” met in honor of the congress at Wycliffe College, Toronto.</p>
<p style="margin-left: 40px; ">Conference speakers — including the Rev. Paul Avis, theological consultant to the Anglican Communion Office in London, the Rev. Christopher Seitz and Alan Hayes of Wycliffe College, Bishop Steven Andrews of the Diocese of Algoma, Bishop Azad Marshall of Iran, Bishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon of Nigeria — called for sacrificial unity.</p>
<p style="margin-left: 40px; ">At the panel discussion led by Ephraim Radner that the African Bishops, Martin Nyaboho of Burundi and Josiah, explained why the proposed Anglican Covenant, the main proposal for preserving Anglican unity in our time, fits well with their cultural perspective. The Anglican Communion, they said, is best understood as a <em>family</em> of churches. This image is crucial, they argued: in a family the members must measure their individual goods against the common good of all. Those culturally conditioned by the individualism of the West have a hard time accepting this, and as a result they find it hard to receive the Bible’s own call to a covenanted form of life, a form of life with a robust concept of the common good. Paul Avis reminded us that living in a Catholic way (“according to the whole”) is an essential mark of the Church. The more interrelated and mutually responsible local churches are, the more distinct, free, and autonomous they become as they find their vocation in relationship to all.</p>
<p style="margin-left: 40px; ">How might a contemporary Western Anglican understand this? My own view is that God perhaps gives us autonomy for the sake of a more voluntary sacrifice on behalf of others, and that this is the opportunity the Anglican Covenant offers us. In other words, despite the problems raised by Western individualism, our respect for the freedom of the individual may have a providential purpose for our day. More precisely, those churches in the West that have received a large measure of freedom have been given this freedom for the sake of their family members in the Global South, where freedom is restricted in more ways than one. Bishop Josiah, for example, was not the only speaker to mention terror and violence as a daily fact of life.</p>
<p style="margin-left: 40px; ">If the Anglican Covenant gives us in the West the opportunity to voluntarily offer ourselves on behalf of those in the Communion who have less freedom, this would have good New Testament precedent. Paul saw this as so integral to his mission that he risked his life to bring gifts to the poor Church in Jerusalem (Acts 24:17) in imitation of Christ himself, who became poor so that we might become rich (1 Cor. 8:9).</p>
<p style="margin-left: 40px; ">Conference speakers reminded us very clearly that it was just such sacrifices, through the apostolic self-giving of evangelists, missionaries, and Christian witnesses of all kinds, that has built the Anglican Communion. And the Covenant is only meant to articulate the mutual expectations that have arisen through years of sacrificial interdependence. Nor is the Covenant’s allusion to possible “relational consequences,” which arise when our bonds of affection are strained, anything new. Actions have always had consequences, and by speaking of consequences in relational terms the Covenant is subverting our tendency to look for easy juridical resolutions. Some will interpret this as a lack of teeth. But as Bishop Steven said, the Covenant is not supposed to be a prenuptial agreement. It is not a contract that unrealistically tries to deal with every contingency. No, what the Covenant calls for takes more commitment, much like the commitments that are given and forged in family and marriage.</p>
<p style="margin-left: 40px; ">It is anybody’s guess how realistic it is to expect more commitment in this Communion, in which relationships have already unraveled. Still, I commend Wycliffe College for doing its part to promote Anglican unity by bringing together these lecturers. Perhaps through gatherings like this God will even yet do a new thing to make the dry bones of our church live again.</p>
<p style="margin-left: 40px; "><em>Jeff Boldt is a doctoral theology student at Wycliffe College at the University of Toronto.</em></p>
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</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/anglican-covenant" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Anglican Covenant</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/wycliffe-college" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wycliffe College</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/anglican-congress" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Anglican Congress</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-categories-top field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Categories:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/lead-story" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Lead Story</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/news" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News</a></div></div></div>Fri, 18 May 2012 19:51:41 +0000Douglas LeBlanc273 at http://livingchurch.org